95 Theses for Christian Racial & Ethnic Unity: #3

“Most white evangelicals, directed by their cultural tools [of freewill individualism and relationalism], fail to recognize the institutionalization of racialization—in economic political, educational, social, and religious systems.  They often think and act as if these problems do not exist. As undetected cancer that remains untreated thrives and destroys, so unrecognized depths of racial division and inequality go largely unaddressed and likewise thrive, divide, and destroy. The solutions evangelicals propose and practice—though in many ways unique in modern America, and much needed as far as they go—simply cannot make much headway in the face of these powerful countercurrents that undercut and fight against their well-intentioned, individualistic solutions.”

Christian Smith and Michael O. Emerson, Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 170.

[Read the Introduction to 95 Theses for Christian Racial & Ethnic Unity here.]